Western Mail Letters: Monday, 16 June, 2014

Your letters to the national newspaper of Wales

SIR – During the past two weeks, we have been asking a few more questions about the development of Llanbedr Airfield.

Having welcomed the re-opening of the airfield for civil use, which will bring new work into the area, we are increasingly concerned about the partnership between Llanbedr Airfields Estates and QinetiQ, the company involved in developing UAV (Drones) for the Ministry of Defence.

We now know that this is part of a larger project to develop West Wales as a special area in drone development which will bring Llanbedr into partnership with Aberporth, where the Watchkeeper Drone is being developed by the Ministry of Defence.

The Watchkeeper is a military UAV. The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that British Foreign Airspace has been used by the top secret US drone, the Global Hawk, on three occasions in May.

This has increased our concern, because we had already heard rumours that the Global Hawk might use the facilities at Llanbedr, where the runway is long enough to accommodate it – it is much longer than the runway at Aberporth.

Responding to our concerns, Jason Coleman (manager of Llanbedr Airfield Estates) mentions (Golwg, June 5) the small business activity that has already started at Llanbedr.

We also know that QinetiQ will use the facilities at Llanbedr for ‘aircraft maintenance, including decommissioning/disassembly, parts recovery etc.’

Mr Coleman goes on, “the special forces will use the airfield for training... but I cannot say much about that.” That is why we are concerned.

Nothing about the partnership with Aberporth. Nothing about long-term objectives. We are aware of the use of drones for civil research, surveying and information etc, but drones for military purpose are high on the international agenda and it is part of the frightening increase in robotic warfare.

That is why we are asking questions. So far, we have received no clear answers. The worrying thing is that local people, even the Welsh Government, perhaps do not know the answers either.

Pryderi Llwyd Jones, Awel Irene, Gwyn Williams

Officers of the Dwyryd a Glaslyn Branch of Cymdeithas y Cymod /Fellowship of Reconciliation

Development fund for us, not the banks

SIR – Dylan Jones Evans writes about a Development Bank for Wales (“Why should we settle for being bottom of the pile?” June 7).

He ends by saying we should all work together, “...government, banks and businesses... to create jobs and prosperity across the nation.”

Amen, but why include the banks?

European banks face a bill for $104bn for regulatory failures. A short-term worry for them – we customers will foot the bill. That no bankers have gone to prison is another measure of their power over governments and politicians.

The Bank of North Dakota, a publicly owned bank that protects its customers from usurious interest, and ploughs its profits back into North Dakota, is a model that has been recommended for Wales.

North Dakota is the only solvent state in the union. Many of its insol- vent sister states are trying to learn from its century of financial probity.

If the Development Bank for Wales gives funding to rapacious banks, fees and interest payments will flow out of Wales like water from Lake Vyrnwy.

Wales desperately needs a development bank, owned by the people of Wales, to fund, among other things, that mothballed factory in the West that once made the best outside-halves in the world.

Keep the banks out of it, or it will end in tears.

Noel Thomas

Maesteg

This white elephant could cost us £100m

SIR – I note that at last the Welsh Government has admitted that it is going to pour more money into the Circuit of Wales white elephant, on top of the £2m already spent.

A further £30m is earmarked. This does not include further millions because of delay due to the allocation/exchange of common land, possibly in the region of another £10m. And this does not include further tax-payers’ money provided to make up for low wages and the part-time work if the project gets under way.

Employees will need to apply for working tax credit, child tax credit and in all probability pension credit, adding another £20m to the bill. To date, then, £60m will have been spent on a project which will provide fewer than 600 (not 6,000 as was originally estimated) jobs, including the construction of the circuit.

In a straw poll I conducted in Ebbw Vale, not one interviewees thought this a worthwhile project. Jobs would be low paid, part-time and unskilled. The site would be under cloud for three or four months a year and the Heads of the Valleys road would become a race-track, with ambulances on permanent stand-by.

How long before the consortium demands further millions because of underestimation of costings? The Welsh Government will not then be in a position to refuse.

I can see that at the end of this debacle the poor old tax-payer will be paying about £100m for the pleasure of another white elephant!

Graham Harris

Llanellen, Abergavenny

Answer, my friends, is blowing in the wind

SIR – I am in Suffolk, after a six-hour drive from Llanfrothen.

We eventually came to the A14 expressway to the ports of Felixstowe and Harwich. We only needed to go as far as Bury St Edmunds, but that part of the journey was of particular interest.

We passed a number of onshore wind farms with their turbine blades turning majestically in the breeze. Then we passed a smaller one on its own, whizzing round. Further on, we came across a group of static wind turbines, with one without its nacelle and blades, presumably still under construction.

East Anglia is the land of wind turbines, as anyone able to receive BBC1 East Anglian regional news will know. Viewers see, at the start of transmission, a line of rotating wind turbines plus a few other features the area is noted for.

In Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex the wind turbine industry has surpassed the nuclear industry to become the biggest employer in the area. While it is forging ahead, the nuclear industry is in terminal decline.

EDF, the French builder of nuclear stations, is bogged down with two continental stations it is constructing: one in France and the other in Finland.

Both are well behind schedule and massively over budget. With the Finnish one, they have encountered such unforeseen problems it may never be completed.

With their quote for Hinckley Point, not only have Westminster guaranteed to underwrite £16bn, which City analysts and stockbroker Liberum Capital describe as “economically insane”, Ed Davey has agreed to pay a minimum price of £92.50 for every megawatt hour (MWh) Hinckley Point generates – almost twice the current wholesale cost of electricity.

The whole deal is couched in such a way EDF can’t lose. It is complete madness.

The sensible way forward is to ditch nuclear and invest in renewable energy instead.

Trefor Davies

Llanfrothen, Gwynedd

I don’t recognise this view of Wales

SIR – Early in June, Carwyn Jones visited local company Hydratech Evans Coolants, under the auspices of the Assembly plan to create jobs for unemployed young people.

During that visit, being filmed for TV, he was asked for his views on the effect the Assembly has had on the Welsh economy.

He said that English education was in a shambles, (and this was after the Assembly had to produce its own English examination paper, as Welsh students could not reach the required standard of the national paper), that the English health system was so bad that patients were paying to obtain medical help, and this also after the Bro Morgannwg scandal over hospital death rates, the inquiry into which has still not come to any concrete decision.

Has he forgotten the 15,000 Welsh cancer patients who crossed the border for treatment ?

His descriptions are more recognisable as the failings of the administration of Jones & Co after 17 years of navel gazing and non action.

K Clements

Llangyfelach, Swansea

These issues will affect 2015 election

SIR – Re the letter arguing that a vote for Ukip could help Labour win the 2015 general election, I would simply say that the Tories have not won a General Election since 1992 (some 22 years ago) and are kept in power by the Lib Dems.

I am no supporter of Ukip, but in a democracy people are free to cast their vote as they see fit. At the next election the Tories will be judged on their record of failure and broken promises. Failure to eliminate the deficit and deliver a sustainable recovery, where working people’s incomes actually keep up with the cost of living.

A failure to reform the banks and stop the payment of huge bonuses, and a failure to take on the energy companies, who are allowed to rip off the consumer. These are some of the issues that will determine the 2015 result.

WalesOnline is part of Media Wales, publisher of the Western Mail, South Wales Echo, Wales on Sunday and the seven Celtic weekly titles, offering you unique access to our audience across Wales online and in print.